Articles by Mort Weiss

As a result of the efforts of one Michael Ricci and what he has given to the jazz world, the above title means just that! Michael has given you--musicians, club owners, booking agents, food and beverage servers, the people that provide such services, all concert and festival artistic directors, venue management, fans, transportation folks and music stores, vendors...I could go on, but I think some of you are starting to get an idea where I've been and where I'm going ...

As many of you know, I've discontinued my column here at All About Jazz called the Mort Report." See my final one (number 22), aptly named My Final Mort Report." Clever, what? My reports were mostly autobiographical, as I kind of put myself on automatic pilot and opened the storage lockers of my brain to let the good times and the bad times roll. In retrospect, they sure as hell did. I read some awhile back, as I was kicking ...

I stood there at graveside in the cold morning mist, collar of my dark blue, (but not too warm coat) turned up-in an effort to--ahh hell, I don't know--I saw it in a film noir flick once--let's just say--that it looked appropriate for the occasion--"the occasion"? The laying to rest of my mother-my mother of soul-of laughs-of tears (the very same that I'm drowning in as I write this bit of text about my mother who I never thought that ...

Backstage at a concert I was doing a few years back, I heard the house announcer getting ready to bring me on, doing his thing. As I'm checking to see if my fly was zipped I heard the words (not in any particular order): jazz, clarinet, septuagenarian and Mort Weiss. I remember thinking--what the f**k? OK, I was asked to write something about a now-well-known little break I took from the scene for 40 years, and ...

O.K. Now that I've got your attention, what should I write about? The many articles here at AAJ have damn near covered each and every aspect on the topic of jazz and its place (albeit) always in flux and change with each and every up and coming generation of players. Where is jazz in the scheme of worldly import and does its relationship to the here and now pay proper respect to all the cats that came before, laying each ...

When we think of an art form, the tendency is to look in every and all directions except inward--wherein all answers lie, although shielded and hidden from one's self and any that choose to be within your sphere of understanding and passion. Why must it take years of self- study and searching the myriad avenues and paths that lead directly to one's innermost feelings of hope, love, fear and despair? And reaching that destination, only to find that every hope ...

Opening!Screaming through the quagmire of being, I see--nay, feel--justification of the heat of singularity of thought. Yearning of (and for) all energies spinning--not only in the dance of Shiva, but in the fulfillment of a manifest destiny of understanding and love that gives forth its eternal fires of hope and the many tomorrows that can & will exist in the immutable paradigms of reception and order, thus bringing together the complete schism of an entity of pre- and/or ...

Hello, once again. Still above ground and taking nourishment while most any of my contemporaries who haven't left the building as of yet are listening to smooth jazz, taking their Lithium and writing with crayons. Having shared that thought with you, last month I had my 78th birthday--another strange custom (why do people celebrate one's arriving at a year closer to their death?).But I digress, having said that, I guess I could be thought of as an elder ...

It was some time in the early 1960s and this story finds me, still Mort Wise, and my band--still named the Wisemen--having just signed a contract with World Artist Management services, a very happening company whose roster had names like Red Skelton, Ray Charles, Jacqueline Fontaine and many others. I would be one of the many others to begin with, at the time, after working the toilets and rough and tumble out of the way places like the Bank Club ...

Hello again. This remembrance takes us back to the early 1960s when I went under the name of Mort Wise and my band's name was The Wisemen. Go ahead and Google Mort Wise And The Wisemen, and you'll probably come up with the recording we did (on a 45 rpm) called Wild Boy." Also, you might read the AAJ article/profile Mort To Come, which takes one back to a literal What Makes Morty Run" experience (knocked me out!). So, at ...

At this time in my life, I'm finally able to express myself through jazz as I have always wanted by becoming fully immersed in the music and lyrics. I love performing American Jazz
Standards and surrounding myself with world class musicians

At this time in my life, I'm finally able to express myself through jazz as I have always wanted by becoming fully immersed in the music and lyrics. I love performing American Jazz
Standards and surrounding myself with world class musicians. There is no other feeling as fulfilling as performing jazz.